In a way it is summer wherever Murat is going. Is it that he is, in my memory, almost always wearing shorts, a rare thing to pull that off anyway in a dignified manner? Is it that he is, in my memory, rarely wearing socks in his shoes, a good thing for any man to try? Or is it that any man with a dog as big as his and on a bike as old-fashioned as his and with this gesture of total composure and calm in Berlin, this city of morons, seems so pleasantly out of place that you feel summer whatever the weather? The point is: There is something around Murat, a certain distance marked by politeness, a distinct civilness that comes with knowing how long it will be before you get home, a feeling of freedom that might be an illusion too nice not to believe in. We met him on the street, Christopher and I, I don*t remember how it started, Murat was always on his bike or walking, he was a flaneur in the classical sense, it seemed to me, and time was his companion. It was on Auguststraße and on Linienstraße and on Alte Schönhauser Straße that we met him, not so much on Münzstraße, where you don*t meet people, and not so much on Torstraße either, where you usually meet a lot of people. He was running a paper at the time called Traffic which was large and on real paper and beautiful, it had the feeling to it that there were people commited to the cause whatever it might be. He supported the 2081 endeavour. Later we passed each other in the street and greeted each other. Then 60pages happened, and now he is back, and we are glad to have him. He will travel to Istanbul, back and forth, like he did in the summer, like so many others who want to see and understand what is happening. Murat will tell us.In a way it is always summer wherever Murat is going. Is it that he is, in my memory, almost always wearing shorts, a rare thing to pull that off anyway in a dignified manner? Is it that he is, in my memory, rarely wearing socks in his shoes, a good thing for any man to try? Or is it that any man with a dog as big as his and on a bike as old-fashioned as his and with this gesture of total composure and calm in Berlin, this city of morons, seems so pleasantly out of place that you feel summer whatever the weather? The point is: There is something around Murat, a certain distance marked by politeness, a distinct civilness that comes with knowing how long it will be before you get home, a feeling of freedom that might be an illusion too nice not to believe in. We met him on the street, Christopher and I, I don*t remember how it started, Murat was always on his bike or walking, he was a flaneur in the classical sense, it seemed to me, and time was his companion. It was on Auguststraße and on Linienstraße and on Alte Schönhauser Straße that we met him, not so much on Münzstraße, where you don*t meet people, and not so much on Torstraße either, where you usually meet a lot of people. He was running a paper at the time called Traffic which was large and on real paper and beautiful, it had the feeling to it that there were people commited to the cause whatever it might be. He supported the 2081 endeavour. Later we passed each other in the street and greeted each other. Then 60pages happened, and now he is back, and we are glad to have him. He will travel to Istanbul, back and forth, like he did in the summer, like so many others who want to see and understand what is happening. Murat will tell us.